{"id":38400,"date":"2017-02-02T22:56:27","date_gmt":"2017-02-03T04:56:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/?p=38400"},"modified":"2017-02-02T22:56:27","modified_gmt":"2017-02-03T04:56:27","slug":"rising-star-fading-star-week-samoa-joe-naomi-enzo-baron-corbin-bayley-neville","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/2017\/02\/02\/rising-star-fading-star-week-samoa-joe-naomi-enzo-baron-corbin-bayley-neville\/","title":{"rendered":"RISING STAR &#038; FADING STAR OF THE WEEK: Samoa Joe, Naomi, Enzo, Baron Corbin, Bayley, Neville"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"pwtor-303705066\" class=\"pwtor-before-content pwtor-entity-placement\"><hr \/><b>SPOTLIGHTED PODCAST ALERT (YOUR ARTICLE BEGINS A FEW INCHES DOWN)... <\/b>\r\n\r\n<iframe src=\"https:\/\/widget.spreaker.com\/player?show_id=3076978&theme=light&playlist=false&playlist-continuous=false&autoplay=false&live-autoplay=false&chapters-image=true&episode_image_position=right&hide-logo=false&hide-likes=false&hide-comments=false&hide-sharing=false&hide-download=true\" width=\"100%\" height=\"140px\" frameborder=\"0\"><\/iframe>\r\n<hr \/><\/div><h3>RISING STAR OF THE WEEK: Samoa Joe<\/h3>\n<p>Injury to Seth Rollins notwithstanding, this has been quite the week for everyone&#8217;s real favorite Samoan. If we put his age of 37 in terms of wrestling years, Joe&#8217;s about on the high-end of his money-making prime, and I&#8217;d say being involved in an angle with Triple H during WrestleMania season is one of the richest spots you could ask for. With Seth&#8217;s knee sadly put on ice, does this mean a straight shot to him going up against a Triple H whose &#8220;fatherly&#8221; NXT persona will finally eat his Monday Night persona&#8217;s lunch? Nobody likes Monday Night Triple H. Nobody. Okay, maybe Vince and the suits at USA, but nobody else. Speaking of Vince, let&#8217;s hope he doesn&#8217;t hold this injury to Seth against Joe too much. I hope his optics for the situation are a little broader than what we&#8217;re used to seeing from him, because if anybody deserves their chance in the mainstream wrestling spotlight, it&#8217;s Joe.<\/p>\n<h3>HONORABLE MENTIONS<\/h3>\n<p><strong>Naomi:<\/strong> When was the last time we &#8220;Felt The Glow&#8221;? Was it when Naomi got drafted to Smackdown? Before the &#8220;Diva&#8221;s Revolution&#8221; (which, do not forget, was originally pioneered by the beacon of self-made womanhood, Stephanie McMahon) and the NXT call-ups of Charolette and the gang, Naomi was one of the best women wrestler&#8217;s on the main roster, so seeing her kind of get lost in the shuffle was a little disappointing, but now it looks like she&#8217;ll be playing dance partner to Alexa Bliss in the Smackdown&#8217;s Women Title picture (she actually has a title shot at Elimination Chamber). She&#8217;s above average on the mic so I&#8217;m thinking this feud might catch some people by surprise &#8211; that&#8217;s if WWE doesn&#8217;t cut it off at the legs before it gets a shot to develop.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Baron Corbin:<\/strong> Who here listens to PWTorch Livecast guest\/comedian\/former WWE creative writer Matt McCarthy&#8217;s &#8220;We Watch Wrestling&#8221; podcast? Big fan I am. Well, his co-host and fellow comedian Tom Sibley chose Baron Corbin as his &#8220;favorite wrestler&#8221; of the week, and his reasoning was so rock solid. It wasn&#8217;t because of his character, his badass &#8220;lone wolf&#8221; shirt or because he eliminated Braun Stroman in the Rumble, but it was the hustle that he showed during the Rumble, and I gotta say, I&#8217;m all in with the ol&#8217; T-Bone in saying I too appreciated the hustle. Baron&#8217;s been downright consistent in his heel character and is becoming one of the guys to see on Tuesday nights.\u00a0It&#8217;ll be interesting to see where he matches up come early April.<\/p>\n<h3>FADING STAR OF THE WEEK: Bayley<\/h3>\n<p>When will the roller coaster of hot and cold, start and stop end for poor Bayley? First, she&#8217;s mis-used and improperly characterized for months after her main roster debut, then they finally start righting her sails by making her &#8220;fan first, wrestler second&#8221;, and now she just loses clean as a whistle to Charlotte on Sunday? This concept is not a hard one, Vince. It really isn&#8217;t. Money is to be had here and this even stevens booking is not only screwing up this feud, but it&#8217;s really messing with this column&#8217;s feng shui. What&#8217;s there left to prove at WrestleMania? She already lost! She was just &#8220;Rising Star of The Week&#8221; 14 days ago and now she&#8217;s booted to digging a ditch in the trenches of &#8220;Fading Star&#8221;? Nothing makes sense anymore.<\/p>\n<h3>DISHONORABLE MENTIONS<\/h3>\n<p><strong>Enzo Amore:<\/strong> Has there been a more damaging advertising partnership than the one WWE has with KFC? Could you imagine Andrew Lincoln taking a break as Rick Grimes during a scene from The Walking Dead to hock the network&#8217;s upcoming episode of &#8220;Comic Book Men&#8221;? Or Rick Steiner having to act scared of a possessed doll because TNT has been showing trailers for &#8220;Bride Of Chucky&#8221;? (Wait, that one does sound strangely familiar) Forget what it does to your GI tract, how many babyface characters must KFC&#8217;s mutated chicken suck all the coolness out of before it leaves the roster dry? That&#8230;&#8221;segment&#8221; with Enzo at the Rumble made me feel like I just ate one of their trash &#8220;Georgia Gold&#8221; meals. What&#8217;s worse is that I&#8217;m probably going to accept the implication that one of my favorite wrestling personalities may have had sexual relations with not just food, but deep-fried fast food.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Neville:<\/strong> His heel turn has been one of the best WWE has done probably in years, but Neville&#8217;s new attitude started to turn a little sour after his title win on Sunday. The &#8220;King of The Cruiserweights&#8221; thing is getting taken a little too seriously, and WWE may think it&#8217;s adding something onto Neville&#8217;s character, but in all actuality, it&#8217;s subtracting from it&#8217;s authenticity. &#8220;Bend at the knee?&#8221; &#8220;Bow to your king?&#8221; I know I said before Neville looks like a Game of Thrones character but the guy doesn&#8217;t need an Iron Throne to sit on.<\/p>\n<p>Road To WrestleMania is now, folks. Someone is bound to get a flat tire.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>NOW CHECK OUT LAST WEEK&#8217;S ARTICLE: <\/strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/2017\/01\/27\/rising-star-fading-star-week-mickie-james-shines-cena-harper-rollins\/\">RISING STAR &amp; FADING STAR OF THE WEEK: Mickie James shines, Cena, Harper, Rollins<\/a><\/p><div id=\"pwtor-2858411152\" class=\"pwtor-content pwtor-entity-placement\"><div align=\"center\" data-freestar-ad=\"__336x280 __336x280\" id=\"pwtorchcom_test_300x250\">\r\n  <script data-cfasync=\"false\" type=\"text\/javascript\">\r\n    freestar.config.enabled_slots.push({ placementName: \"pwtorchcom_test_300x250\", slotId: \"pwtorchcom_test_300x250\" });\r\n  <\/script>\r\n<\/div><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div class=\"pwtor-end-article-groups pwtor-entity-placement\" id=\"pwtor-3954599306\"><div id=\"pwtor-664645725\"><div align=\"center\" data-freestar-ad=\"__336x280\" id=\"pwtorchcom_medrec_3\">\r\n  <script data-cfasync=\"false\" type=\"text\/javascript\">\r\n    freestar.config.enabled_slots.push({ placementName: \"pwtorchcom_medrec_3\", slotId: \"pwtorchcom_medrec_3\" });\r\n  <\/script>\r\n<\/div>\r\n\r\nTHANK YOU FOR VISITING<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div class=\"mh-excerpt\"><p>RISING STAR OF THE WEEK: Samoa Joe Injury to Seth Rollins notwithstanding, this has been quite the week for everyone&#8217;s real favorite Samoan. If we put his age of 37 in terms of wrestling years, <a class=\"mh-excerpt-more\" href=\"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/2017\/02\/02\/rising-star-fading-star-week-samoa-joe-naomi-enzo-baron-corbin-bayley-neville\/\" title=\"RISING STAR &#038; FADING STAR OF THE WEEK: Samoa Joe, Naomi, Enzo, Baron Corbin, Bayley, Neville\">[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5703,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","itunes_episode_number":"","itunes_title":"","itunes_season_number":"","itunes_episode_type":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[46,52,4309,27],"tags":[127,2332,321,653,125],"class_list":["post-38400","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-spotlightarticles","category-opnionandanalysis","category-rising-star-fading-star","category-specialists","tag-bayley","tag-enzo-amore","tag-naomi","tag-neville","tag-samoa-joe"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/JoeSamoaWK_3x2_600.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38400","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38400"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38400\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38401,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38400\/revisions\/38401"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5703"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38400"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38400"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38400"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}